What’s “basic” in health care is an issue of heated debate. Individuals and groups as diverse as cancer advocates, children’s hospitals, parents of disabled children, physical therapists, dentists, and optometrists have been waiting for final clarification from HHS.

Harold Pollack talks with Jonathan Cohn, Senior Editor of The New Republic about the “wild ride” ahead for the Affordable Care Act, now that it’s survived a fierce Congressional battle, a Supreme Court challenge and the recent Presidential election.

Maggie Mahar provides a round-up of some of the most provocative healthcare posts of the past two weeks in this edition of Health Wonk Review.

Last week, President Obama signaled that he is ‘open to making modest adjustments to programs like Medicare.’ Should seniors brace for bad news? No. There are many ways to cut Medicare spending without drawing blood. It’s a matter of using a scalpel, not an axe, to trim the fat.

Harold Pollack talks with blogger Aaron Carroll about how he became a policy wonk, about his favorite health policy charts and the road ahead for health reform.

The governors and the president needs the other. Each side has a (possibly perverse) stake in the other’s success. Each would also be wise to make some concession, if for no other reason than to provide their counterpart with a dignified path to compromise during the second Obama term.

It’s hard not to think about the movie “Thelma and Louise” with all the dire predictions about the coming”fiscal cliff.” House Speaker Boehner and President Obama may be our modern day Thelma and Louise, playing a little chicken with us all, with Obama proposing some pretty dramatic solutions and Boehner and the Republicans offering little except “no” to tax rate increases and raising the Medicare eligibility age.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to our first Healthinsurance.org Curbside Consult – a periodic informal dialogue with medical and health policy experts about pressing issues of the day.  Tonight, President Obama and Governor Romney will face off in their first debate. Medicare and Medicaid will be central topics of the conversation there. Healthinsurance.org’s Harold Pollack caught up [...]

Romney running mate Paul Ryan’s speech last week criticized President Obama for enacting “a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for.” But health policy writer Harold Pollack says the WE Ryan embraced left many people out.

Perhaps conventions are not where you expect truth to be told. But should they at least be places where lies are not so blatant?

We have been told that in some red states conservatives “hate poor people.” But my guess is that they’ll hate higher premiums more. If premiums go up, governors who turned down federal Medicaid dollars will have to answer to voters.

In states where governors have vowed not to expand Medicaid, health insurance premiums are likely to go up as hospitals struggling to care for millions of uninsured patients pass the cost on to private sector insurers, who will, in turn, pass the bill on to their customers.

Harold Pollack explains that America’s working single moms have much to lose if states refuse to expand Medicaid under health reform.

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act breathed a sigh of relief after Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling. Yet many remain worried about the decision’s Medicaid section. Although the court upheld the constitutionality of expanding Medicaid, it also ruled that the federal government may not withhold all of a state’s Medicaid funding to induce a state’s participation in ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

The nation dodged a bullet Thursday when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, upholding the law’s individual mandate.

This legislative program is why the 2012 elections are the most important in living memory. Conservatives could achieve goals long in gestation and fervently sought. Liberals could see seventy-five years of social welfare legislation undone.

This week, Maggie Mahar edits the Health Wonk Review, a biweekly compendium of the best of the health policy blogs.

Under reform legislation, insurers selling policies in the individual or small-group markets can charge older boomers up to three times more than a younger adult would pay for an identical policy – unless the older person lives in a state that limits age-rating.

Mr. and Mrs. Romney might ponder why so many people whose lives have been altered by chronic disease and disability become passionate supporters of health reform. Some of these advocates directly experience medical-economic hardship. Others have not faced the most punishing financial consequences. They merely see what happens to others, less-privileged, who face the same medical challenges with fewer resources.

“Repeal and replace” efforts to kill health reform especially focus on repealing the Medicaid expansion that would extend coverage in 2014 to millions of low-income adults and kids. Ironically, these measures are unlikely to much improve the federal budget.

Jennifer, a 33-year-old college student, struggles with mental illness. It’s been an ongoing battle for Jennifer, who’s founder of a nonprofit organization for cancer survivors. Fortunately, …